Oral History with Carolina Smales, May 28, 2021 (Ms2021-023)

Jessica Taylor: Today is May 28, 2021. My name is Jessica Taylor. I'm interviewing Carolina, part two, for the Latino Oral History Project slash Voces of a Pandemic project as Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia Tech. This project is in partnership with the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Please know that this interview will be placed in the Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia Tech, and shared with the Voces Oral History Project Oral History Center at the University of Texas at Austin. If there's anything you do not wish to answer or talk about, I will honor your wishes. Also, if there's something you want to talk about, please bring it up and we'll talk about it. Because we are not conducting this interview in person, I need to record you consenting and I'll also send you a deed object. So I'll ask you a series of six questions. Please say "yes, I agree" or "no, I do not agree" after each one. There are several questions you need to make sure you agree to before we go on. Special Collections and University Archives wishes to archive your interview along with any other photographs and other documentation at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech will retain copyright of the interview and any other materials you donate to Virginia Tech. Do you give Special Collections and University Archives consent to archive your interview and your materials at Virginia Tech?

Carolina Smales: Yes, I do.

JT: Do you grant Virginia Tech right title and interest in copyright over the interview in any materials you provide?

CS: Yes.

JT: Do you agree to allow Special Collections and University archives to post this interview on the internet where it may be viewed by people around the world?

CS: Yes, I do.

JT: Do you grant Virginia Tech consent to share your interview and your materials with the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas at Austin for inclusion in the Voces of a Pandemic oral history mini project, which will include posting the interview on the internet?

CS: Yes.

JT: We have many questions at a pre-interview form that we have already filled out. We use that information from the pre-interview form to help and research. The entire form is kept in a secure Voces server at the University of Texas at Austin. Before Virginia Tech sends it to the Newman Libraries, we would have stripped out any contact information for yourself or family members. So that will not be part of your public file. Your public file will only be accessible at the Newman Libraries. Do you wish for us to share the rest of your interview in your public file available to researchers at the Newman Libraries?

CS: Yes, that's okay.

JT: On occasion Special Collections and University Archives and Voces receive requests from journalists, who wish to contact our interview subjects. We only deal with legitimate news outlets. Do you give consent for us to share your phone numbers or email with journalists?

CS: Yes.

JT: Okay. So I'm going to move on to the questions over here. Tell me a little bit about your experience with COVID-19.

CS: Wow, that is an open question. Once again, you stop me if I talk too much.

JT: Okay.

CS: My overall experience is being from very different perspectives. Working in healthcare in a way, I analyze data from healthcare, population health, and I work in neuroscience research. When COVID started, I remember back on that moment, I was in a neuroimaging lab working and then all of a sudden we were informed that this was happening. We had to start working remotely and moved all my station home, and I was in the middle of doing some prototyping for a new technology for brain imaging. I basically had to start making my prototyping tool room in my own garage. I purchased a bunch of things and I put it in the 1:00garage. In relation to the COVID and the feeling that I had, it felt to me kind of like as if I was in a fictional story in a way because I remember being as at that moment I was a little bit in shocked that we have to start doing things so differently so drastically and then kept hearing this news of people getting affected and unfortunately, hospitals being packed. I have many friends from China particularly so concerned about my friends and their families from China first and then knowing that you will quickly moving here to the United States. Then also South America was getting very out of control. I am from South America. It was kind of crazy. I felt like in a little bit of a shock state where I was just trying to execute actions non-stop, focused on my job and what I had to do. I started creating things, designing things, doing calculations, just because I wanted to not to think about the pandemic and what was going on because I felt like I was in a fictional story after a while.This was around 2:00February, so right that when it first started. Following the CDC and the World Health Organization, and the government that we had, following all the news, it started to add a little bit more stress to my feeling of, wow, what truly is happening here? I particularly started going to read a lot about the flu back on today on the COVID-19. I tend to do that because I like to compare models of back then and now. I say, well right now we have technology. Thank god so we can at least be connected and be informed. In the middle of the chaos I think what worried me the most was to see the people the anxiety level increasing all 3:00around the globe. The families being separated and not being able to say goodbye to their beloved ones. So many family members, in particular, my family members and friends, who were already dealing with another crisis in my country, Venezuela, a crisis that was economical, social. Then on top of that, my only thought at that moment was, wow, and on top of that they're going to have to deal with a pandemic when it's already difficult for them to find medications, to have resources in the hospital, when the hospitals lose power and people die in the middle of a surgery. On top of all that, oh my gosh, now they have to deal with a pandemic. So was difficult; that was very difficult for me and for 4:00my family. Thankfully, I'm here with my mother, my father, and my siblings. We have part of our family still there in Venezuela and others that have flee the country and have established themselves in other places in South America, here, in Germany, all over the world. So in a way that was the first feeling for the COVID-19. It was a big shock, and a big refocus of values in life. I have to say after doing a lot of research and reading and following the news and listen to people kind of like going desperate and calling each other. I started to do a 5:00little bit more me time because I was at home. I started having some space just to think, this is happening, there is a larger reason of why this is happening in the world. It's certainly affecting a lot of people. But what can we do? What can we find positive out of this? I know as an innovator that great innovations have actually taken place after crisis. Sometimes it's a personal crisis that someone has and then comes out with an amazing idea solving many things for the world, after wars, after pandemics, after many things, the some of the greatest innovations have come out of that. So as an innovator myself, I started thinking, What can I do? What can I do after this pandemic? What can I do for people during this pandemic? What can I do to provide calmness? What can I do 6:00for my family who is far away and who's dealing with this situation far away and who are losing family members? To me particularly it all came to communicating with them. I said, if I'm not gonna hear from my cousin, in few days, if I'm gonna be losing someone I love and I haven't talked to in years because I've been in the United States, now half of my life and half of my life, I've been in South America. So I said, if one more day is gonna go, and then all of a sudden, I'm gonna find out that someone who I love died, and I never talked to that person anymore, ever again, then I don't think I will feel very good about that. 7:00I made it an agenda for myself. I did it also for other people to start calling every single member of my family first and then my very good childhood friends. By doing that it was incredible. I was able to reconnect so many feelings, memories, and also, to do what I wanted to do, which was to provide a little bit of peace and happiness for at least one moment in the middle of the chaos of COVID-19. That was probably one of the things that I felt most valuable that I learned from the pandemic. The response of a pandemic in my personal level was to give more value, to not take for granted the people that you have met along 8:00your life, and to try to reach out to them because sometimes you have them in your mind, and you have them in your heart, and you worry about them, but you don't take the time to connect with them. That was one of the greatest process of growth that I have had during this pandemic, is that it made me click in my mind. I said, what are you doing? I'm not gonna do anything if I analyze all these numbers, and I say, these are my predictions, I'm not gonna do anything crying all day, for the people who is affected. I'm not gonna do anything by getting desperate. Then my mom gets desperate too because I'm desperate and my kids too. We increase the anxiety at home. I'm not gonna do anything with that. 9:00I'm not gonna do anything with anything else. But I can do something for people if I reach out to them and tell them how much I love them.

JT: Yeah, absolutely.

CS: I want to know about their lives. Tell me what happened with your daughter. What did you do? So that's what happened? So there was a transformation in me. I kept working at the lab. I was working in the Fralin Biomedical Research Lab in 10:00the neuroimaging lab. I was helping put some technologies together. In the middle of me reaching out to people. Something very personal happened in the middle of a pandemic. I lost a very, very, very dear to me, childhood friend. And it was from a heart attack. It wasn't from COVID-19; it was from a heart attack. I think that marked even more a change in my life because he was a university professor of electric engineering in Venezuela. Had been a very good support of me and my ideas of innovation and ideas of art. I do art. [inaudible] and a good husband, good son. I didn't get to talk to him. In my list of people I was calling, I [inaudible] before he had a heart attack. So wow, that was a very ironic play of life that I didn't put him sooner on my list to people that I wanted to call. So his name was Nelson. [inaudible] Professor Nelson by University of the Andes, which is where I graduated. When we were in high school, we did partially one science fair because his dad used to work in biomedical fluids. We always had a very interesting play thanks to his dad, who was also a professor in the university. He and I work very well together. He started to do a PhD graduate studies in neuromarketing and emotional intelligence. He did tell me that about a year ago. He said, I'm doing this. I love this program. I feel that we need to work on emotional intelligence more. I feel like people are very intelligent. They have a very high IQ, but I feel that one of the things that are not working very well in this high tech world is the is the emotional intelligence side. I think people are not aware of how 11:00important their emotions are and how managing emotions are important. What I ended up doing after COVID-19 and reflecting on the death of my friend, was that I actually decided to quit my job at the lab. I started a program where I would honor Nelson Vias there. I would start the promotion of emotional intelligence. I combined my neuroscience skills and I started also doing some programs of 12:00wellness for children. I wanted to help out with the problem of anxiety in children, starting from the elementary school level. I saw from my data analysis numbers that anxiety, depression, the rate of suicide and substance abuse, post-pandemic the prediction is to continue increasing. In combination with inspired by the life of my good friend Nelson Vias there, and my initiative that I took during the COVID-19 in response to the chaos, that's when I started kind of like moving my life towards that towards the promotion of emotional intelligence, with a lot of neuroscience based techniques and research, working with psychologists, with teachers, with pediatricians with epidemiologist. We're trying to put in a whole package that also involves entertainment because I am an artist. I'm putting all that whole package to do post-COVID-19. I call it like this in my program that can bring back the joy and the hope on planet Earth. It's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing right now. COVID-19 was just basically an accelerator of something that I wanted to do for a long time. But because of COVID and because of the people I lost, I got the guts to quit what I was doing and what I was comfortable doing before and it started launching on 13:00this adventure on my own.

JT: Great. Thank you so much for that. Can you talk a little bit about how COVID has impacted your family, including your parents and your kids and your family inVenezuela?

CS: Yes. That's going to be a little tough. Hold on one second. Let me take a deep breath here. We lost a lot of family in Venezuela because of COVID. My dad lost two sisters, so two of my aunts died because of COVID. They were older; 14:00they were very happy people, very energetic people. From one day to another, one weekend to another. My dad actually was able to talk to my Aunt Marie the weekend before she died, and it was just crazy. She went to the hospital, and all of a sudden they thought she was better, and then the next weekend she passed. That was the case. Also my cousins, my friends, my friends love parents who in a way-- In Venezuela, our Latino culture is such that family is not just your biological family. It's not just your close family. It's not just your mother and father and your siblings. Family for us is the neighbors that you have been growing with. I grew up in a neighborhood with my same neighbors for twenty years. My childhood friends and their parents, for me, were like my 15:00parents too. My uncles, my aunt, actually I call them and cousin. Even though we're not blood related, so I think one of the one... I'm not gonna say which one affected me the most because they all affect me. I was definitely shocked to lose one of my good friends, who I consider in a way full of energy, Uncle Simone. He was a pediatrician, and he kept the social distancing. He was doing everything right. On December, sadly-- For the Latino culture, I knew it was gonna be kind of like impossible to get the Latino families, now gathering especially after such a period of emptiness and not being able to see each other. In a way, many people started to get happy when they thought, oh, the 16:00vaccine is coming and all that. I think that started loosen up a little bit in people's mind, the restrictions. If they only thought that the vaccine was being developed, and that it would soon come. It just started loosen the restrictions. Then on December, Señor Simone, my friends, who I consider like my uncle. They gather together on the family, only the family, not with friends with just the family. Unfortunately, one person was infected with COVID and affected five members of the family, including him. They all luckily recover, but he didn't. He spent on a respirator for over a month. To cover his respirator in Venezuela, 17:00cost us about 2,500 dollars per day to keep him in the clinic with a respirator. In Venezuela there is no resources. There was no such thing as respirators in the hospital. We had to go through a private clinic. The family started collecting desperately to provide the machine for him. Luckily we are a big family, and we were able to do it. After a while I think the clinic thought that his oxygen levels were better and that he was doing better. Right now it's a little dilemma for me because we all think that maybe the clinic was so packed, that they just basically try to move patients and that he wasn't ready. But we will never know that. So it will be unfair for me to do that assumption. But 18:00it's just kind of like, well, we all was like how can he leave the clinic and then two days later die? We just couldn't fit in our minds, but that's exactly what happened. We kept him on the respirator. On February 9, which is my birthday, and his birthdays, it was very close to mine. I remember he asked me if I could sing a song for him, a Venezuelan song that he always liked with the Quadra, which is an instrument that represents our country and I play. So my cousin called me and said, daddy is asking if you can sing this song for him. On February 9, my birthday, I sang that song for him, sent a video, tell him, I 19:00know very soon you're gonna be good. He sent me a message saying, thank you that he heard the song that it really made him very, very happy. Then two days later, he died. So that was a very that was probably one of the most impactful moments for me. At least for him, I was able to sing the song. For my other friend again, he was so all of a sudden that I couldn't connect with him. But before Simone, I did. So oh my goodness that's in Venezuela. My family here, it's been different. I've been working at home, mostly. They were used to mommy working in the office or in the lab. Having me at home is not a bad thing, but it is a different dynamic. When mom is a home is difficult to put a limit when mom is 20:00available, or mom is not available My kids do not put that limit. If I'm here, I'm here. So that means for them, I'm available. So it's very hard to work when I was here. Then my husband and I decided that we wanted to keep the kids remotely during the pandemic because we were afraid. Again, we kept listening to these cases at the schools. We thought it was best to keep them remotely. That was good. On the one side, I get peace of mind having them here, but bad on another because I am not a teacher. I admire more than ever, the teachers, more than I probably ever did before. My mom is a teacher, and I always appreciate the field of teaching. I think it's devoted. I love teachers, and I admire their 21:00work. I never admire them as much as I did until I had to have my fourth grader and my sixth grader at home with me. That was crazy. Also one of them is their personality is such that he was okay being online. But the other one wasn't and his grades started to suffer. I felt, in a way, a little bit of a failure because I wanted to keep up with him and math and all that. I realized that the way I learned math is not a way that he's been taught math. So the methods that they use right now to teach division or something are not the same that I could do. So it was a whole re-learning process for me and for them. I said, look guys, this is not easy for any of us, but the key here is try to be calm, and 22:00try to see what can we learn when we are here, and the good thing is that we're together. So I can always tell my kids that good thing is that we're together. Now mommy is not a teacher. So you have to have patience with me. Okay. While I am trying to teach you what I know, in the way I know, but then you have to check with your teacher. We get doing the best effort we could. My husband, on the other hand, he does work in a clinic. He couldn't work from home. So he continuously was working at the clinic and he worked in the pulmonary clinic. You could consider my husband was one of the front staff. He was helping doctors with their N-95 mask and was helping with making sure that the mask wasn't 23:00leaking, that it was working properly, that was adjusted properly. He works in sleep medicine in a sleep clinic and respiration. I cannot deny and I was also very worried because he was in that position. But he kept telling me, I'm the one who protect myself on my staff the most because we're there with the patients with pulmonary problems and in COVID. So, don't worry, we're gonna be okay because I'm protecting myself. But always ranting my mind, it causes anxiety. The fact that you have someone working there, but I'm proud of him as well for everything that he did. The kids, when we had the opportunity to send them to not full online but a mix schedule, we did it. So especially my older kid, my fifth grader, who was starting middle school and oh my gosh in the 24:00middle of a pandemic, middle school. The transition from elementary to middle school is probably one of the hardest for the kids. Doing it in the middle of it pandemic was even a little bit more because they don't get the socialization. They don't know anybody. My poor son, he didn't feel that he had any friends. Then they couldn't do play dates and all that. So that's the way that they got affected. In many occasions, I did see also some behavior of changes in them that commonly doesn't represent their character. My preteen, my middle schooler, at some point had behaviors that were not characteristic of him. He's a very happy, cheerful, analytic type of kid. At some point, I saw him getting very 25:00violent and like, I cannot take this anymore! Using words that we don't use, like this sucks! I hate this! I try to tell him, try not to use those words. I always say, hey, this is a very extreme word. I try not to use hate. Let's try to say, I really don't like this. I really dislike this, but I try not to use the word hate. Because he knew that I say that, he was doing the opposite. He's like, I hate, hate, hate this! I was like, oh my gosh. I could tell that the kids were very just very frustrated for not being able to play with their friends, to see their friends. My fourth grader didn't like to take test online. He was much better at doing it at the school. I think for both of them in terms 26:00of the schooling, during the COVID, keeping up with the homework-- the fact that they had to in a way had an attitude of a college student, where they have to go to the computer and check their assignments, and then on their own try to complete things. That was a little bit insane because they didn't have a habit formed. I don't know how other parents did it, but that was difficult for me. We just are trying to focus in what is the positive of COVID-19 and what we learned from COVID-19 and what we value from COVID-19. So I always tell kids, yes, it's been difficult not being able to play with friends, but now you know how cool it 27:00is to play with friends. You know how important that is, and when you see your friend next time, then you're going to take advantage of that time. You're not going to be with your friend fighting or disagreeing or calling each other names because what is the point? If after so long that you weren't able to be together, when you are together, do it well. Do something that you really enjoy and you're happy about. That's what we try to convey to them. It's kind of like the value that you want to give them. So many lessons learned, I would say as an overall statement. I think during the COVID-19, after losing people, after observing behaviors, after me, I mean yourself being feeling vulnerable out of control, someone knowledge that you think you have, and then we're all on the 28:00same pocket of this out of control situation. Being on a pandemic and being this generation dealing with that. I think it's a lot learning that we get from this. I think so.

JT: Absolutely. How is your parents' perspective different from yours? You said that they're with you, right?

CS: They are with me. My mom was a retired teacher. My mom was a chemistry teacher and my dad is an engineer. My mom is been trying to keep herself calm. 29:00But it's been difficult because my mom, the transition from her to move after sixty years of her life, from South America to the United States, is a big, big, tremendous cultural shock and change for her. My mom is very social like I am. I am a reflection of her. She likes to talk, and the neighborhood here, there are not many people who speak Spanish, at least not in our neighborhood here. So she, in a way, have felt like trapped in a bubble. For everybody in my family, I think for the person who was the hardest, the COVID-19. My mom had different health records like where her blood pressure went down, and we had to take her to the emergency. My mom has had some panic attacks and anxiety attacks, periods of depression, where we altogether trying to be there for her. Me repeating her over and over that I can't imagine what it's like to be on her shoes and adapting to all this. I always been kind of repeating the perspective to her, imagine if you were there. If you were there right now, and you weren't here. I 30:00don't know what we would be like. Me and my brothers will be extremely worried. I honestly don't know what could have happened if my parents weren't here. So she comes back always to the positive side when she reflects on that. But she has been greatly affected my mother. My mother suffers because she has a WhatsApp group unit, WhatsApp, the application. We have multiple family WhatsApp groups. I understand this very, very much because I've been here in this country, again, half of my life, but yet I feel like a piece of me is still in South America. For my mom is even more because she just recently moved she moved 31:00four years ago. She is practically there. Her body is here, but her mind is there and is every day there. She's always talking with her friends because it's the people she can talk to, that are in Venezuela. They're all conveying the problems and their feelings and what is happening and that's what she does. We always say for her peace of mind, mom can do for one day not listen to the problems of people. It took us a while to understand this, but then we realize that what pleases my mother is to actually listen to people. It pleases her because she feels just like I felt that my way of doing something good for my 32:00friends and family was to connect with them and talk to them and sing for them or whatever. For my mother, the way she thought she felt most productive in doing something was by listening and she's right. But at the same time, her having to listen to all the stories, problems, complaints, pain, kept affecting her and she kept absorbing that. So it's a very tough balance because that's what makes my mom happy and that's what we, in the family, had to accept. So we kept telling her, mom, don't do it, don't do it. This is affecting you. But at the same time, that's it. It's her need. Her need is to be there for her people. We do it in different ways. But she inserted that in me as well. We understand her, but she has been greatly affected. My father has a different attitude and 33:00personality. My father has been focused on working. He's working here. I finished the residents paperwork, and they've been trying to incorporate-- My father has been trying to learn English. He has attended multiple English classes here in the region and also online. The other day he was actually proud because he helped a friend at the DMV. My father was the one who helped my friend talk for him. He felt so proud because he has learned something. So my dad is on a more, let's say, on a different personality and a different way of dealing with all this. He really values that we're all together here. My mom is going to be a process in a little by little we're just trying to be together to 34:00help her because it's been a roller coaster for her.

JT: You had mentioned that your mother had some health issues. How has COVID revealed some problems in healthcare either in your husband's work, in your work, and your mom's experience?

CS: I can resume that but it has been all about mental health. I'm not gonna put people in a pocket, and I'm not gonna speak for other people. I can only see from data from population data. The mental health has been increased, but I am 35:00not going to detach myself from them because it has affected me mentally, emotionally, and it has affected my parents, my children, and my husband. Even though we work in the field, and my mom is an incredible-- She's filled with estrange. She is a very strong woman, and so is my dad, but he has affected us mentally in different levels and in different ways that have only been reflected on behaviors, words, crying, sleeping. It has definitely affected our mental health. I think that has been the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had. Physically, when your mental and emotional health is affected, emotional being part of mental, your physical health also pays for it. I think that's the way it goes, but I am not a medical doctor. So I'm just telling you this from a healthcare analyst perspective. There's always a loop of in healthcare, trying to go over the loop of what the World Health Organization says health is: the 36:00social well-being, the mental well-being, and the physical well-being. Healthcare overall, has always been rather concentrated on the physical well-being because it's more tangible. You can tell when someone has a pain, and then you measure and you take blood pressure and all that, and then there you go, this is how we're gonna treat that. But when it comes to the social well-being, and when it comes to the mental well-being is a little bit less tangible. But I always feel that the beginning point is the mental side, that's me. When the mental side is affected, it affects your social well-being, and it 37:00affects your physical well-being. But science hasn't never put one point, it's always a loop. Science always says, no, this, this, this, this, this. Healthcare overall always puts physical health on the front line because it's more tangible, but I always put mental health on the front line. We yet haven't seen the impact the true impact that COVID-19 really had on this whole generation that dealt with it because when yet need to wait to see what are the behavioral consequences in society in the way you work and the way you think and the way you act, how you manage your emotions. We yet don't know yet how that's going to be. Now going through the pandemic, and now hopefully, going through the first 38:00period of post-pandemic has been a tremendous mental health change for all of us in the family and in for people in general.

JT: In terms of just going to the doctor, in where you're at right now with your family, what is your family's experience been like, going to the doctor or going to see mental health professionals during COVID?

CS: Let's start with the doctors. We tried as much as possible not to go to the doctor during the COVID-19. We didn't want to visit the hospital because we didn't want it to basically leave home. If we had to do like a general check or 39:00any preventive care visit, we didn't want to do it. We wanted to wait until COVID was better. So we all kind of like try to be at home, but we did have some emergency visits. My sister had a baby during the pandemic and so she had to continuously go for her checkups. My nephew was born on October sixth. Then we had a baby in the family and that brought kind of like balance that out with the sadness we had from losing cousins and aunts and uncles because of the pandemic to welcome a new member in the family. So that helped out a little bit, but we tried to avoid at all costs to go see a doctor. Now, mental health professionals, I considered many times actually going to mental health professionals, but I did that because right now I consider myself truly half-American and half-Venezuelan. I have adapted so much to the American culture, like the North America, the USA culture, that I am actually okay and 40:00open to go to a mental health psychologist and just talk to them and tell them how I feel and get some important feedback. My family, from South America, and this is typical from South America, they don't think that way. In our culture it's very, very difficult. There is a big stigma of going to mental health doctor. They don't want to see a psychologist. They don't want to see a psychiatrist because they always have the biggest stigma that they're gonna be called crazy or insane. They do not want to accept that. I wanted my mother to see a psychologist because again, I am not a medical doctor. ButI have been 41:00surrounded so much by healthcare and by doctors and psychologists that I know my mother was having periods of depression and she had the symptoms. So as a mom, let's go and I translate for you, or we find a translator, if you don't want me to be your interpreter, and that's okay. But that wasn't possible because in her mind she doesn't need it. So the truth is that I wish I could bring my mother to a mental health provider, but she would refuse profoundly because of her culture. There is no other way to put it because of her culture to just wouldn't do it. On the other hand, I actually did it. I went to one of my friends and to 42:00get advising how to handle not only me, but me, my children, and my mother, like I went for her. She doesn't even know but I did because I was suffering seeing her suffer. It always made me question, did I do good bringing my mother here? Because I want to have her close or which would have been better just being at home, and being happy around the people she knows and being together and support each other? I always thought I was doing it for her to be happy. I guess deep down it was also for me to be happy. It's always a dilemma in me. Did I do it for me or do I do it for her? I don't want my mom to spend the last years of her life being at a state where she isn't content and happy. I want her to be happy. Her unhappiness and desperation and continuous crying in because of COVID. It just didn't help. It was already indeed very difficult to have her here with all 43:00these mixed feelings and then on top of that when COVID-19 happened and she started losing friends as well and family. Oh wow, it was getting a little bit more out of control. So I wish I could tell you that I took her to a psychologist but she wouldn't let me. As for the rest of the visits, my husband, because of the nature of his job, he had at some point to help the emergency department when the people affected but with COVID were entering the hospital Carilion Clinic was preparing actually trying to prepare well, in case they had to deal with an overflown emergency. My husband was contacted to do practices of emergency and he was pretending to be the patient and they did a bunch of practices to know how to deal with the situation as fast as possible. So that was something that Carilion Clinic was doing. Just kind of like trying to prepare for the overflown emergency and the equipment and the and the staff. That's when my husband had to indeed go to the emergency multiple times. That worried me a little bit more. I mean, he already was in the pulmonary clinic, but now he had to do that. I was like, wow. Now, there was a hard period too. But it wasn't because my husband or myself, or the children, thankfully had an 44:00emergency, the only one who did have an emergency was my mom with blood pressure. She had very low levels of blood pressure and almost fainted by the time that we made it to the emergency. Up to this point, we believe still that it was an emotional situation. She basically didn't drink water for the whole day, didn't eat much. I was sleeping next to her for like two days, and monitoring her blood pressure, and it just wasn't coming up. So we decided to go. The staff, the doctors, wow, they're the heroes. They were magnificent, really truly.

JT: How did the vaccine change your family dynamics? Were there feelings about 45:00how that would affect people's health? What's been your interaction with vaccines?

CS: We are a family pro-vaccine. Eric is my husband. We're hesitant. It's almost like we want other people to get the vaccine first. I know this is very selfish, silly of us. We wanted other people to get the vaccine first, and then we will go for it. My husband didn't have a choice because he was one of the first groups to get a vaccine. I was working mostly from home, so I was kind of like trying to halt when it came to the vaccine. My parents, who were on the eldry group, had the opportunity to get it and we went to get it as soon as possible. 46:00I do have to mention, though, that we were incredibly blessed because having worked with the Latino community for a while, I organized events for the Latino community. I do a lot of cultural development. I do a lot of that. Vivian Sanchez, who's one of the the city council's and then she represents the Latino. She called me and say, Caro, are your parents vaccinated? And I said, no, Vivian, I'm waiting to see when Carilion opens the opportunity for my parents who were allowed to. She said, no, let me put them right away here because I'm trying to make sure that the Latino community is vaccinated. I thought I was great and I'm forever thankful with Vivian for doing that. I put my parents in one of the first groups to get the vaccine and once they got vaccinated, they 47:00again they felt very lucky to be here because in Venezuela, I don't even know when the vaccine is gonna come and if it does come people doesn't even trust the government to get it. I have family in Chile. I have family in Ecuador. The processes over there are not as agile as fast as in the United States. We're very blessed that we were able to do it. My husband got it first because of his line of work, then my parents, and then it came to us, my siblings and myself. Because I was still working from home I didn't feel I had at the moment the need to get it yet again. I was in my mind I was just giving more time more time more time. There was a little bit of hesitation for me to get it, but I ended up going not long ago to get my vaccine because I am ready to go back to the 48:00libraries and work and work with children and the schools, so I decided okay, I need to come out of my mind let's just go do it. For the kids, we still have the hesitation to get it. My middle schooler and others call center communicate that they can get it twelve years old and that and again, my husband and I are still hesitant with the kids. At some point we'd read that there is effects on the reproductive system. We don't know about all the effects that the vaccine may have. So we still are a little bit on the thinking side for the boys, for kids, whether or not we want them to get the vaccine. That's where we are right now. We're still kind of like reading my friends' pediatricians. They recommend them to do it before the supplies go away, but we're still very, very hesitant with that. Because again, we don't know. I insist that we don't know yet the effects of the vaccine or the COVID-19 until later, we want not. So sometimes it's a leap of faith and a leap of sight and a leap of belief in science. I have a lot of faith in science, but yet, at the same time, I'm trying to be very cautious. We want to be more secure of everything before we do for the kids. That's us personally now.

JT: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else about COVID that you wanted to add as we come to the end of the hour?

CS: On my personal side, it is my hope that really people can stay the positive side of COVID. Going through the pandemic, it's kind of like an opportunity for a big remarkable world transformation if you ask me, transformation in the sense of spirituality, emotion, diversity, inclusion. It's kind of like a reminder that after all, we're all humans, and that we all are vulnerable, and have similar vulnerabilities. Like how people tried to separate themselves from the region, especially people from Mexico with the last government with some government policies. Immigration policies were often separated. People from the Middle East were often separated in terms of what we're allowed to do, what we're not allowed to do, and all these things. I know that COVID-19 it's a health pandemic, but at the same time, it is my hope for the world. After going through this, people really entering their minds that we're all the same, that we're all humans, and that we can all lose our lives just by that in a matter of seconds, so try to do better in their lives, try to come up with something that truly impact people's lives in a positive way and not so commercially driven. I felt that we were living in a world that is incredibly commercially driven, rather than being people driven, and human needs driven. So in my humble 50:00perspective, as a healthcare analyst, it is my hope that the post-pandemic generation can be transformed for a positive human growth in emotional development, human development growth, rather than the contrary. Rather than everything was bad, bad, bad. I really hope that people focus on the positive things that can come out of this, rather than just the negative parts. But of course, nothing is gonna replace the people we lost during a pandemic. I am all about continuing the legacy of the people will love.

JT: Thank you.

JC: Thank you Jessica.